The effect of robotic coding course on secondary school students' 21st century skills and computational thinking skills

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of a middle school-level robotics coding course on students' 21st-century skills and computational thinking (CT) abilities. The research was conducted during the 2024–2025 academic year with 6th-grade students at a private middle school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Antalya, Türkiye. A quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test control groups was employed. Data were collected using the 21st Century Skills Scale developed by Kalemkuş (2020) and the Computational Thinking Skills Scale developed by Karalar (2021). The collected data were analyzed using the t-test in the SPSS program. According to the findings, students who participated in the robotics coding course showed a statistically significant improvement in their computational thinking skills, particularly in the sub-dimensions of algorithmic thinking, creative thinking, and problem- solving. However, no statistically significant difference was found between the experimental and control groups regarding overall 21st-century skills. This suggests that the development of such skills may require longer-term and more integrated instructional approaches. Overall, the study concludes that robotics coding education effectively supports students' computational thinking abilities and offers pedagogical insights for enhancing its implementation in educational contexts.